Monthly Archives: January 2016

…So, the CEO of Marvel may have ticked off a few people. If you don’t know what’s going on, here’s the short version, as best as I can shorten anyway: Isaac Perlmutter, the chief executive officer of Marvel Entertainment, recently made a $1,000,000.00 donation to a foundation that supports American war veterans. Now, that might not seem like it’d be all that problematic…until you learn the exact foundation in question: The Donald J. Trump Foundation for Veterans, an organization run by a racist, bigoted douchebag trying to garner support for his quest to become President of the United States, and who currently has petitions being organized against him to deny him entry into various countries. In fact, as I understand it, there are some vets who have openly stated that they do not WANT Trump’s money, and given how foundations like this usually work, it’s uncertain if war veterans will ever actually see a penny of the money raised, and thus you have to ask if this donation on Perlmutter’s part was actually to support them, or Trump.

In the wake of this, a number of people have suggested the idea of outright boycotting Marvel, and some may already have. Now, I’m not gonna try and tell people what they should or should not do. If they wanna boycott Marvel, that’s their choice, and frankly, there’re a lot worse reasons to do it over. However, I think these people are sort of neglecting something: The decisions of the CEO of a company do not speak for EVERY SINGLE PERSON who works for said company. In fact, one thing I can’t seem to get confirmation on is if this is his own money he’s donating, or Marvel’s money, which would make a difference, because if it’s his, then the only person this involves is him. If it’s Marvel’s, however, then yes, he would’ve had to have gotten permission from Marvel’s board of directors, which reflects a bit more on the company. But even then, like I said, it doesn’t reflect on EVERYONE in the company. Don’t believe me? Here is the exact reaction of the first person I thought of when I heard this news, transcribed from her Twitter account: G. Willow Wilson.

“So I was actually at dinner in Burbank with some Marvel folks when someone texted us news abt Perlmutter’s donation to Trump’s fundraiser. I sat there in stunned silence for a solid minute. I do have thoughts–many thoughts–but the people who have mentored and sheltered me at Marvel deserve to hear them first.”

Since then, Wilson has gone onto her Tumblr account, gwillowwilson.com, and stated that “The irony that Ms Marvel was launched on Perlmutter’s watch–while Donald Trump would like to prevent Muslims from even entering the United States–was not lost on the mainstream media, nor on me”, but that “frustratingly–boycotting books you love will not take a single dime out of Perlmutter’s pocket, much less out of Trump’s. It will, however, kill the books”. Furthermore, she stated “I am going to continue to work on Ms Marvel, for the following reason: I have never, in my entire career, seen a character and a story light people up the way this has, and I need to see it through a little longer. (Unless of course I get fired for talking about this shit, in which case, it was nice meeting you all.)”. There’s a bit more to what she said, and I highly recommend you read it all here.

So, where does that leave yours truly? Will I boycott Marvel? Well, the answer for right now is no. However, you can be sure that I’m not sticking around for Perlmutter. I am sticking around for the writers I like, for the books they write that I like, and for the characters, specifically one that has quickly become one of my all-time favourite heroes, Ms. Marvel. However, I’m gonna be keeping an eye on this situation as best as I can. And I’m just gonna say this: If I find out that G. Willow Wilson has been fired for going on her own personal forum and giving her honest opinion on this situation, then I’m going to walk. That is the line for me. I will say that this doesn’t affect whether I’m gonna go see the movies or not, since the Deadpool movie is being done by Fox, and as I understand it, Marvel Studios is kind of its own thing now. Don’t ask me to explain how that works. The point is that whether I go to see a movie with characters created by Marvel will depend on if I personally want to see it and I have the money, which I recently mentioned is gonna be a little tight for me in the future. Oh, and before you tell me terrible things that Fox and/or Marvel Studios have done in the past, lemme remind you all that if you boycott EVERYTHING with a bad past and run by people who have made questionably ethical decisions, you would never buy comics from any publisher, watch movies from any studio, buy products from any company, you probably wouldn’t even have or use a computer, and you might not ever be able to listen to your favourite songs the same way again. JUST SAYIN’. lol

Anyway, that’s my two cents on the matter. Lemme know what you think about all of this, and we’ll see how things develop from here. Ja né!

Cartoon Network has officially announced its new Justice League animated series. Titled “Justice League Action,” which will run in installments of 11-minute episodes. Some very familiar names will be returning to voice the animated show Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman and Mark Hamill as the voice of The Joker.

Official synopsis

“Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman lead the DC Comics Super Heroes against their most infamous foes in adventures packed with relentless thrills, fun and action. No need to wait for the good stuff to start, each eleven-minute episode jumps in with lightning-pacedaction and heroics. Whether defending the Earth, facing invaders from space, or battling the bizarre forces of magic, the always-rotating team of Justice League heroes, are up to any challenge.

Also lending their voice to the cartoon is James Woods as Lex Luthor and Diedrich Bader as Booster Gold. Warner Bros. Animation President Sam Register is executive…

Well, it’s been a while since I posted a new chapter of PrimalStrife, due to a combination of over-brainstorming, being distracted by other stuff, and just wanting to leave readers in suspense after last chapter ended with essentially a motha fuckin’ T-Rex. So, here’s an early preview of Chapter 13! And as always, remember this story is rated M, except on AdultFanFiction, where the uncensored version is posted.

…So, suffice to say, we were not having a good last day of our trip to the Viridian River. Looking to my sides, taking a quick survey of my team, I could tell we were not looking good. Garrison’s arm was a bloody mess, Jacob’s wing was torn, Katrina was a little cut up, and Percy was trying his best to see to all three of them. Meanwhile, the rest of us were all a bit shaken up and low on ammo, and now we were facing off against a Reptile Hairless, one of the absolute last things you EVER want to find yourself up against. This was going to suck, BADLY.

“Stay clear of her bones and claws,” I advised as calmly as I could while I readied my rifle, Cory reloaded his revolver, and Claire tightened her gloves. “They can stab and shred you apart before you have a chance to realize what happened.”

The massive Hairless let out one earth-shaking roar before lunging at us, her teeth ready to chomp down on us. Before she could, though, Claire leaped up and punched it hard in the snout, while Cory and I rolled to opposite sides and opened fire on her eyes. For the brief moment that this left her stunned, Tracy quickly let loose a spray right into the Hairless’ open mouth, probably hoping to make her back off…It didn’t work out so well.

I barely managed to even see it when it happened. All I know is that, following this initial attack, the Hairless swung her giant, spiky tail around. I just barely managed to duck and roll under it as it threatened to slam and skewer me. Tracy, however, wasn’t so lucky. While she managed to avoid the spikes, the tree trunk-like flat of her tail managed to plough into her side, sending her tumbling end over end across the ground.

“TRACY!” Jacob screamed, immediately forgetting the state of his wing and hurling shuriken after shuriken at the Hairless. Meanwhile, Claire, having held onto the giant’s nostrils, was now on top of her head, throwing relentless fists into her face, giving Cory a chance to grab Tracy and pull her out of the Hairless’ immediate vicinity.

“Claire, get down!” I yelled, taking shots at the Hairless’ underbelly.

“Don’t have much CHOICE!” Claire screamed as she was suddenly thrown off the Reptile’s head, flailing in the air. Jacob managed to leap up and catch her before she hit the ground, but his wing gave out almost immediately, causing him to crash into the side of the Nova. The Hairless opened her jaws wide and charged at them, clearly about to chow down on them, until an orange and black blur rocketed across the side of her face, actually managing to leave a sizable slash mark across her cheek.

“I’ve been worse!” Katrina replied as the Hairless instead turned her attention on us.

Looking just behind the giant Reptile’s foot, though, I spotted Garrison using his teeth to ready an explosive arrow on his crossbow. Realizing his plan, I began unloading every round I had into the Hairless’ skull, keeping her attention on me. Katrina soon figured it out, too, scooping up Tracy’s fallen pistol and shooting at the Hairless’ eyes. Before the Hairless could chomp down on us for the constant aggravation, though, Garrison managed to fire the arrow directly into her hide and quite literally blew her ass clean off. Kat and I got out of the way as the Hairless tumbled forward, her back end and tail a gruesome mess.

“…Holy shit,” Cory muttered as we regrouped. “Seriously, you need to start making more of those arrows.”

“That’d be great…” Garrison moaned, lowering his arm as Jacob and Claire slowly scaled down the RV, “…if I weren’t out of materials. That was my last one.”

“Tracy?” Jacob inquired to Percy, who was looking over the fallen skunk.

Jacob glanced down at his wing, now dripping in blood. “You don’t say?”

Sure enough, just a couple seconds later, the now bloodied and VERY angry looking Reptile Hairless was back to her feet, glaring holes through us. Opening the pouch on my belt with bullets, my heart sank as I found only one left. Looking to the others, it was clear they were all either out of ammo or close to it. Garrison scoffed, using his teeth to free his crossbow from his wrist.

“You’ve only got one good arm!” Percy insisted.

Garrison nodded, eyes on the Hairless as he prepared the claws on his left hand. “That’s one more than she’s going to have when I’m done.”

And that’s all for now. Lemme know what you think, and be sure to read the full chapter when it comes out, either on FictionPress or AdultFanFiction. Ja né!

Okay, so if you’re like me, then when you see people playing LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, you think “If/When I get this game, the first thing I wanna do is unlock all my favourite characters”. Well, on the off chance that your favourite character is one of the newest members of the Avengers, Kamala Khan, here’s exactly where/how you can find and unlock her.

How to unlock Kamala Khan (the new Ms. Marvel) in LEGO Marvel’s Avengers and some open world free roam gameplay with her are shown in this video. Kamala Khan’s character token can be found in the South Africa Hub where you have to escort her on a mission to take the best selfie with Hulk.

Remember that “top secret” Pikachu game that was announced in 2013, where the cuddliest Pokémon was supposed to be a fully coherent detective? Back then it was expected to be out in the world in two years’ time, and that deadline passed last October, so all of us likely forgot about it. But now it has a title, a 3DS eShop release date of February 3rd in Japan, and a somewhat creepy teaser trailer which sees Pikachu wear a detective’s hat, drink coffee, and speak in complete sentences.

Meitantei Pikachu: Shin Konbi Tanjyou (Great Detective Pikachu: The Birth of a New Duo) is set in Lime City, where humans and Pokémon live side by side, and the story begins when Pikachu has a chance meeting with Tim Goodman, who has a certain purpose being in the city. The game will be available at a discount of 1200 yen until…

So, it was reported the other day, pretty much in tandem with the whole DC Rebirth thing, that Scott Snyder was going to be leaving the main Batman title. Since then, Greg Capullo pretty much confirmed it on Twitter, and the word going ’round is that Snyder (and possibly Capullo as well, not sure) will be going to Detective Comics…Well, that pretty much changes my plans for when Poison Ivy’s miniseries is wrapped up. See, the thing is, and I was gonna make mention of this eventually, my parents and I recently had to go on welfare, which means I’m gonna have less money to spend on comics, so I’ve had to reduce my pull list to four monthly comics: Poison Ivy, Batgirl, Spider-Gwen, and Ms. Marvel. Once Poison Ivy: Circle of Life and Death was over, I was planning to fill the empty slot with Batman, since Bruce is taking back the cowl. However, between the news that Snyder won’t be on the book anymore, plus the fact that it’ll be a bimonthly release now (two issues a month), it looks like I’ll instead be going with Detective Comics.

But see, here’s something that kinda buzzes the back of my brain. And I wanna make it clear that, from here on out, a lot of what I’m about to say is strictly SPECULATION. I have no REAL evidence about any of this. However, the reason Scott Snyder is leaving Batman for Detective Comics has been suggested to be because he has more stories he wants to tell with Batman, and because the primary Batman title is going to remain more “event driven”, Detective Comics is probably the best place to do it. As such, it brings up a question I’ve had on my mind for quite some time now: Whose idea was it to have Jim Gordon be Batman?

Now, on the one hand, you can see how it might’ve been Snyder’s, because in the Justice League books, Batman is Bruce Wayne, and they’re the books where all the really big shit happens that effects the whole DC Universe. As such, if Snyder’s really going to Detective Comics to get away from having to adhere to the big events going on in the DC Universe, it would suggest that he came up with Jim Gordon being Batman and has now found himself in a position where plans will have to change as a result of storylines going forward requiring Bruce as the main protagonist.

However, on the flip side, in all the Bat Family books, Batman is Jim Gordon, meaning the stuff Snyder personally is writing will always have Jim as Batman for as long as that story is going on. Furthermore, looking at the storyline in hindsight where Jim has had to take over as Batman, you can see elements where it might not have been Scott’s idea. Not only does Jim openly admit that the idea of him being Batman is stupid, but the first issue of this story reveals that Bruce is alive, and then we quickly learn about how he has amnesia. Really, the focus of the story isn’t even on Jim. The focus is on Bruce. Jim is just a place-holder for Batman until Bruce gets his memories back. Also, so many events have happened in the Bat Family books, and in fact new books altogether have been written (We Are Robin, for example), all in the wake of Batman and Joker’s last battle and Batman being presumed KIA. And lastly, on top of all of this, the change involving Jim Gordon becoming Batman happened at the same time that Superman and Wonder Woman changed costumes, and Superman’s identity was made public, which could be seen as DC deciding to copy Marvel’s massive change-ups with Captain America (Falcon becoming the new Cap after Steve Rogers lost the supersoldier serum), Iron Man (turned evil in AXIS, but honestly, who could tell the difference by then?), and Thor (lost the ability to use his hammer, which instead found its way to Jane Foster).

With all of that in mind, if I had to take a guess at what happened, and I fully admit I could be wrong here, I would suggest that Scott Snyder did NOT come up with the idea of Jim Gordon becoming Batman. I’ll grant this much: The final battle with the Joker might have (and probably was) a plan of his, which would in turn lead to a story where Bruce is left without his memories and we see him living a normal life, but that it would ultimately lead to him slowly beginning to remember and making the choice to return. However, if my suggestion of DC wanting to copy Marvel’s recent changes with their big three is correct, I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that the higher-ups at DC Comics decided to capitalize on both wanting to do that, and capitalizing on Snyder’s story with Bruce losing his memory, as well as the fact that the show Gotham was on, which had Jim Gordon as the main protagonist.

In fact, in regards to that last bit about Gotham? Apparently, a big part of the reason for the upcoming DC Rebirth is to make the current line-up of comics be more reflective of the current TV shows and movies starring these characters. Is this a bad idea? Well…yes and no. See, one big part of why making Starfire the way she was in Red Hood And The Outlaws was so mind-numbingly stupid is because the reboot of The New 52 was meant to bring in new readers. As has been brought up many times before, the only reason a new reader would pick up RHATO is because of the appearance of Starfire, capitalizing on her appearance in Teen Titans, except she was nothing like that version of the character, or her previous comic book incarnation for that matter, and thus they would be turned off from this book. So, changing up the line-up of books to take better advantage of those watching the shows and movies? Yeah, I can see the appeal for that. However, the problem there is for those of us who are already reading the comics, and just had a major reboot to the entire DC Universe a little less than five years ago, and now it looks like we MIGHT be about to endure another one. Do I know this for a fact? No. But would it shock me if that’s what happened? Also no. Now, I’ve already said that a SOFT reboot would be okay, and in fact desirable for many reasons I’ve listed, but if they honestly hit the universal reboot button again? It’d be like saying that we read the past five years worth of comics for NOTHING.

Hopefully, Flash won’t be responsible for this one too. lol

But anyway, like I said, a lot of this is conjecture on my part. And yeah, I could be wrong about a lot of what’s going on, what’s happened, and what’s going to occur. This is just me getting out some theories (and worries) about the current product at DC Comics, which I hope to continue reading in the future. For now, though, as I said earlier, my pull list has been decreased to four comics a month: Two from DC, two from Marvel. As such, I’ve had to drop a lot of books I was reading, and to those that worked on those books, you have my sincere apologies and hopes that your stories continue on and do well. And hey, maybe if my current money situation improves enough in the future, I might be able to buy the trades to get caught up.

For now, though, lemme know what you guys think about everything going on at DC nowadays, and we’ll see how this all pans out in June…just in time for my birthday. lol Ja né!

Last night we saw the release of two new thirty second teasers for the upcoming Batman v Superman movie. Thankfully, DC and Warner Bros. have taken a step back from the miscalculated decision to show Doomsday in the previous trailer, and have instead decided to focus on the animosity between the Dark Knight and the Caped Crusader. We get a trailer basically focusing on each hero and why they dislike the other. As basic as that sounds, it builds excitement for the inevitable clash between the two.

Also released was a pretty standard poster of the two heroes facing off. Again, its a return to what made the original trailer so enticing. In all honesty, these last few months of posters and teasers will only likely capture those people who until now have been unaware of the massive movie event soon to happen. As for the rest of us (the majority)…

We already knew that Greg Capullo was leaving the title at issue #50 to move on to creator owned project. According to Comic Book Resources, Batman is going to start a bi-monthly schedule where Detective Comics will stay a monthly title.

According to a report from Bleeding Cool, “Batman” will move to a bi-monthly schedule starting this summer. “Detective Comics,” however, will stick to a monthly schedule. It is unclear which issue of “Batman” will be Snyder’s last.

The report claims Snyder will have more freedom to work with the character in “Detective Comics,” which allows for more creative storytelling than the event-driven main title.

As someone who runs a razor thin budget, this means I’ll most likely be dropping the main Batman title, and go over to Detective which is monthly – plus still get Scott Snyder doing the writing. I just can’t afford an extra Batman…